Hexham and Hadrian's Wall

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February 28th 2009

Published: August 16th 2009

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[youtube=sqcPia_hZLc]

mkstrat

Royal Sign

Sign of a royal that once was here but now I believe it is a beauty salon.

Hexham, and more importantly, Housestead was the event for the weekend. One of Mark's coworkers happens to own a car and offered to take both Mark and Kaitlyn to this quaint little town and then on to Housesteads.

First... Hexham...

Hexham is most notable for its abbey. The abbey itself has been there for over 1300 years and was built mostly out of Saxon stone from the invading Romans. It has been expanded over the centuries and now is roughly double the original size.

Outside of the abbey, there is a nice garden where they have the Hexham City Lawn Bowlers club... seriously flat, nice grass there. Also, outside the abbey, they were having the weekly farmer's market, and by the looks of the items, had some really nice cheese and breads to buy!

From there, we drove about 30 minutes to get to Housesteads. This required going through the back country roads of England. For those that have taken any sort of questionable back road where you didn't know if the road was one lane or two, that is how driving in England is if you aren't in the city (well sometimes) or on a main

Hexham Street

Street View of Hexham.

highway.

Once we arrived at Housesteads, we had to walk about 10 minutes from where we parked. Now normally this wouldn't be an issue but the weather that day started off nice and sunny, but turned bleak by the time we got to the country side. The walk was up a hill on some farm land, so we got to talk to the sheep (which Mark did rather well and had quite the following!) and experienced a true English hunt! A pack of riders on horseback with their dogs took out across the hill just like you would see in the movies!

After the excitement of the hunt left us, we hiked up the hill to see this fort. Now you all remember our trip to Segedunum, and how "wonderfully preserved" that fort was... well that was nothing! This place both Mark and Kaitlyn really enjoyed. They could actually walk around where the buildings used to be and see how the whole place was lined out. You could see how the fort was connected to the wall and the fortifications that the Romans made to help keep the invading Saxons out.

Check out the video for more